What is a Fair Price?

When I was about 8 years old, I started to collect coins. The collection was nothing special as I look back on it, but it taught me a very valuable lesson. I went with my dad to a coin shop and paid $6 for a coin. Some two years later, I looked the coin up in the “Red Book” which placed a value on coins and saw that my original purchase was listed as $12.00 in uncirculated condition which mine was. I excitedly told my father that I had doubled my money. He smiled and said, “Not so fast, Don.” Then he proceeded to explain to me that the Red Book price was close to what a dealer would charge me if I wanted to BUY the coin now. If I were selling it to him, I would be lucky to get $8 and more likely $6 which is what I had paid for it. The lesson that I learned at my tender age was that a coin, a house, a used car, a collectible, or a stock was only worth what someone else was willing to pay for it.

In Consumer Behavior, theorists often refer to a phenomenon known as the endowment effect. If something is owned by you, you endow it with a value that is often distant from marketplace realities. People who think their home is worth a million dollars are shocked when their realtor places it at $650,000 and even then the bids that arrive are lower. The used car that you have pampered for 12 years does not fetch nearly as much as the price you envision for it. Learning that things are only worth what others are willing to pay for them was a great lesson to learn when very young.

Over the years, I have  been shocked by people who survived in the advertising and media business not realizing the simple truth of auction market pricing. I would suggest a bid on a property or a sponsorship and a colleague might say, “We can’t offer that. The station will not make any money on it.” I would often respond simply that such a low amount was what the property was worth to our client and add that, if the price was truly too low, they would not sell it to us. You did not have to be abrasive or obnoxious about it. Simply state that our offering price was all that the client could pay or what we were willing to pay.

Another sales tactic that always really amused me was when a rep would say, “We have worked so hard putting this together. You have to pay more than your offer.” Once, sitting across from a particularly odious salesperson, I smiled and said, “I didn’t know that you were a Marxist.” He looked wounded at first and then slowly became angry. I outlined Marx’s long discredited labor theory of value which briefly described that the value of a commodity can be objectively measured by the average number of hours required to produce that commodity. Think about that for a moment. Let’s say that I decided to knit a sweater. I assure you, my friends, that I could spent 1,000 hours working on it and, at $15 per hour as a wage, no one would want to buy the ugly sweater that I had produced at any price—but especially not at $15,000. Well, I use that absurd example to make the point that it mattered nothing to me that someone had spent a lot of time putting a proposal together. If it did not reach the people whom the client needed to reach at the right price in the right environment, we would go elsewhere.

In the years to come, prices for advertising or  program or event sponsorships will fluctuate depending on market conditions and competitive demand. There is no intrinsic value to media time or space across any platform. It is only what someone is willing to pay for it. Ideally, both sides get a win-win in an important negotiation. Pricing to me has always been something of an economic miracle. Sometimes dozens of people in many countries contribute to putting a product or service together. Each makes some money every step of the way. The finished product, however, is only worth what the consumer thinks is a fair price and one hopes the producer can make a profit at that level.

The little boy with the shiny uncirculated silver quarter is now almost 60 years older. He has not forgotten the lesson he learned so long ago.

If you would like to contact Don Cole directly, you may reach him at doncolemedia@gmail.com

Netflix, Disney and Cable

I have been away for a few weeks with somewhat limited access to e-mail and some of my normal business news sources. Opening up the mail last night, I found a number of statements about the state of the media world. Those that I can repeat included:

“Netflix is toast. Disney’s moves will take a few years but Netflix will be crushed.”

“Say goodnight, Comcast and Time Warner. AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner will prove to be one of the biggest blunders in American business history.”

“A freestanding ESPN is going to drag cable down, down, down.”

“Disney does not get it. They clearly have no idea how hard it is to start a streaming service from scratch.”


What is all the hysteria about? On August 8th, Disney Company CEO Bob Iger announced several things. First, Disney will end its partnership with Netflix in 2019. After that, Disney content will not be found on Netflix. Also, Disney will launch it own streaming service in 2019 which will be the only place where one can watch new Disney material including action and animation. Content from the Disney Channel, Disney Jr. and Disney XD will be available on this entity as well.

Separately, ESPN, a Disney property, will begin a streaming service in 2018. It will feature 10,000 events a year including much live programming. Simultaneous to both announcements, Disney revealed that they will have a majority stake in BamTech, which is a significant streaming as well as marketing service.

So, the Disney changes are what precipitated the four quotes that I received from Media Realism readers and friends. Are the above comments correct? What is going to happen?

Here is my quick take on what appears to be going on:

1) Over the last couple of years, ESPN, until recently, a spectacular cash cow for Disney, has been struggling a bit. They were bidding up the rights fees for various sports properties which they were trying to pass on to advertisers. As more people cut the cable cord and young people used many online properties to get sports news, ratings began to sag a bit. ESPN, in a belt tightening move, laid off a number of on air personalities, some of whom were making seven figures in compensation.

2) For years, many pundits were saying that a large group of people ONLY were cable subscribers to obtain ESPN and its sister channels. If ESPN went freestanding, Disney could earn more money than now. Anecdotally, a number of young men in their 20’s told me that they would definitely dump cable if they could receive all ESPN platforms on line for $15-18 per month.

3) Cable has definitely lost some penetration in the recent past due to cord cutting and cord-nevers. As part of an experiment, I used Netflix, You Tube and Apple TV as a surrogate for a cable subscription about 18 months ago and had 95% of my video needs met admirably.

4) Netflix—the August 19th edition of BARRON’s, a Dow Jones publication, cautioned stock investors about Netflix. It is selling for over 200 times earnings, has high debt and, as they put it, are a “hit renter” rather than a “hit owner.” It would require them to spend massive amounts on content to keep growing. The author suggested that with such a high market cap they could easily float some new shares to either pay down debt or finance new programming. I agree but have a different take on Netflix than most. Several years back, I thought that Netflix had arguably the best business model that I have ever seen (Single exception! I grew up outside Providence, RI so the mob may have had a better one in the 1950-70’s given the high cash nature of their business interests). To me, as a consumer, Netflix is an outstanding product. I absolutely love it. As an old movie buff, I have over 100,000 films to choose from and also their made for Netflix properties, a few owned and others rented which are often of excellent quality. The pricing to me is a steal. Consumers these days are sensitive to price increases so they may have to move subscription rates up slowly. Outside of the US growth is still fairly strong and they now have an eye popping 100 million + subscriber base. My problem is that movie making and TV shows are generally a pretty crappy business. Over my active media career, I tracked that 72% of new televisions shows were cancelled in the first year (I would assume that today a similar statistic would be operative). And, most films lose money. So, Netflix had a wonderful model but now that they have become a programmer they have added a lot to their risk exposure. Also, people tend to forget a vital thing about Netflix growth. For years, they were competing against hapless Blockbuster. I am certain that in the future, the Harvard and Wharton MBA programs will be using Blockbuster as a preeminent case study on how NOT to run things. Netflix shrewdly hopped on the digital train as it left the station and Blockbuster continued to build brick and mortar stores as one new CEO replaced another. Blockbuster also refused to consider a bid to buy a substantial hunk of Netflix went Reed Hastings (founder of Netflix) went to them hat in hand.  Also, Netflix is now facing direct competition from Amazon Video and will soon have another deep pocketed competitor in Facebook. And, do not forget that Alphabet (Google) has a sleeping giant in YouTube if they choose to get in the mix in a much bigger way.

So, what is going to happen over the next 36-48 months? I do not know and anyone who tells you they do is as sensible as those talking heads that I see on CNBC or Bloomberg telling you precisely what is going to happen to the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the coming week. Clearly, while no one knows how the media merry-go-round is going to develop, there is certain to be some upheaval. Disney has content and Comcast and Time Warner (likely to soon become AT&T) have both scale and buying power. Netflix has consumer preference but not the deep pockets of a Facebook or Alphabet. So, on balance, I would have to say that Netflix which I love as a consumer may well be the most vulnerable when I look at it unemotionally as a media analyst.

Frederick the Great of Prussia once famously said that “God is on the side of the big battalions.” Directionally, that is where my bet would be as well for 21st century media.

If you would like to contact Don Cole directly, you may reach him at doncolemedia.blogspot.com or leave a message on the blog.

Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 Hours

Since its publication in 2008, many of us have read Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller,  OUTLIERS: The Story of Success (Little Brown and Company). Gladwell gets a lot of criticism for being something of a pop psychologist who is selective with his research but I always find him to interesting and fun to read.

When OUTLIERS had been on the bestseller list for many weeks, an aggressive young salesperson visited me. He asked me if I had read the book and I said yes. We discussed it for a few minutes and he then said, “I will know as much about media as you do in another four years.” I smiled and said maybe you are right. Annoyed, he replied, “No, I will. I have been in the business a year working 40 hours per week so that makes 2,000 hours. When I have five years under my belt, I will have my 10,000 hours in and be an expert just as Gladwell said.” I tried very hard not to laugh and responded, “I think that you are taking Gladwell a bit too literally. You get stuck in meetings and sales calls daily where you do not learn anything new. Also, you drive to a few appointments a day in Atlanta traffic. Those 2,000 hours per year are not all solid gold in terms of learning the business.” He was clearly not happy with me.

In my life, there were two examples that illustrated my point that I tried to articulate to the young lad but he failed to accept. The first happened in college. I was interested in a young woman and she told me that she saw that famous pianist Van Cliburn was performing the following Sunday. The problem was that he was performing in Providence. I said no problem, I had a car, I was from Rhode Island, and I knew the venue well. Off we went and I must say I enjoyed being with her more than the recital. After the performance, she asked “Don, can we go backstage and meet him?” I said sure thing but was a bit nervous.

About a dozen people were there and I asked him to sign the program and he was most gracious and my young lady friend was thrilled. Then, a stage mother pushed a nervous 10-11 year girl up to the great man. She said, “Van, my daughter practices four hours per day."

Van Cliburn gave a pained smile and said “When I was young my mother was working so I would come home from school alone and work on my music. Sometimes, she was late coming back from work. She never asked me how long I played. Always, she asked what did you do? Learning to play well is all about focus. The only valuable time is when you are totally in to what you are doing. Very often, it does not take as long as you think some days.” That really impressed me.

Some 35 years later, I was playing in a golf junket at Pebble Beach with my brother.  Two time PGA champion Dave Stockton did a clinic for us before the tournament. He echoed Van Cliburn by asking us how often we practiced at the driving range and how many balls we hit when we did. He stressed that we should never stand in the practice area and hit one ball after another. Rather, we should watch the flight of each ball hit, especially the bad ones and try to access what went wrong. The number hit was not nearly as important as trying to discern what went right or wrong with your most recent swing.

Over the years, I have unknowingly practiced the 10,000 hour drill. There is a particular topic about which I have read 700 books. Literally. I do not consider myself an expert but I know more than most. In recent years, I have devoted with few exceptions an hour a day to another topic. Before I die, I hope to be near expert level in that discipline as well.

Interestingly, Gladwell gets some criticism from the originator of the 10,000 hour theory. He was Professor Anders Anderson of the University of Colorado. The concept was developed in a paper he wrote entitled, “THE ROLE OF DELIBERATE PRACTICE IN THE ACQUISITION OF EXPERT PERFORMANCE.” Unlike Gladwell, he stressed that the QUALITY of practice was important. So, both Van Cliburn and Dave Stockton were saying the same thing to me before OUTLIERS was published.

The morale? Be wary. Just because someone has been in a business for 10, 20 even 30 years does not guarantee that they are a true expert nor does it mean that they have kept current with what is going on. This is especially true in today’s world of media and marketing.

I have played golf since 1958. An invitation to play in next year’s Masters Golf Tournament is not in the cards despite my extensive practice!

If you would like to contact Don Cole, you may reach him directly at doncolemedia@gmail.com or leave a comment on the blog.

"I Am Not Really Needed"

Like many of you, I do not get a hard copy of a daily newspaper anymore. On line subscriptions to both the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times cover my needs very well. One exception is the Sunday New York Times. It is delivered to my sidewalk each weekend and I devour it with my morning coffee. Given my age, I often linger for a few moments over the obituaries to see if anyone whom I knew or knew of in advertising, broadcasting, or publishing has passed on. Yes, in ten years time, it may become my sports page!

A few months ago, I saw a name that seemed to register a bit in the cobwebs of my memory.   I read the obit carefully and think that I may have remembered this fellow. We met very briefly for a few hours but what he said has stuck with me.

For many years, I traveled a great deal on business. A great deal. While not in real miles, more than one airline gave me over 200,000 air miles to my frequent flyer accounts in the same year. When one travels that much you have your fair share of cancellations and long delays. One such delay occurred in the dead of winter. I was coming back from a client meeting in the upper midwest. The first class cabin was not full and three of us were talking when the first delay was announced. The flight attendant served a round of drinks and we all took things in stride. The captain announced a half hour later that there would an equipment change and we all had to vacate the plane. We would likely not leave for 90 minutes. An unusually well dressed man about 10 years older than I offered to buy us a drink in the airport lounge. We all exchanged what we did for a living. He had a high powered job for a prominent company in the financial arena. The third member of our party exclaimed, “Wow, you must be rich!” Our new drinking buddy shook his head no. “I consider myself successful but I will never be rich.” He went on to describe his life with a brutal candor that almost made me feel a bit sorry for him. As a youngster, like his father before him, he had gone to the right prep school and then college and was now a member of the right clubs in New York. He then went on a tirade about the federal, state and city income taxes that he paid. His real estate taxes in Westchester county were astronomical and his commute was horrendous. Were he to make any real money the Feds would hit him with a gift tax if he wanted to help his children who were now at very expensive prep schools and perhaps a large inheritance tax as well when he died.

I was getting fed up with his pity party for himself and other members of the 1% when he dropped something of a bombshell to both of us. “I am different from my partners. I know that I am not needed. Someone else can help defer taxes or evaluate a security or a new business every bit as well as I can. I am a well paid corporate functionary who leads a boring, upper middle class, unimportant existence. Yes, I am a professional but I am not and never will be a tycoon.”


He then went on to say how if he had his life to live over again he would trash his Northeastern respectable point of view. “I should have taken some risks and been willing to put up with uncomfortable situations. Moved to Africa or Asia and really made a difference with something. Then, maybe I could have been rich, and more importantly, fulfilled.”

A lot of things hit me. First, he had no idea how lucky he was relative to almost everyone in the world. His problems were ones struggling people and most of us would love to have. At the same time, he had a self awareness of how unimportant he was in the scheme of things and had genuine admiration for gutsy entrepreneurs who had a dream and went across the world to make it reality.

Last week, I asked some of my panel members if they were needed. Surprisingly, the broadcasters in senior positions generally said no. The older ones said they had a good run in the golden era of broadcasting and advertising but all felt they could be replaced quickly and easily. Ad agency owners (small to mid-sized shops) were a mixed bag. A few said they were grooming someone to take their places but a small group said almost directly that they were the glue that holds the place together and if they went, the shop would not be far behind. Perhaps broadcasters see themselves as managers while agency heads, even of small firms, perceive themselves to be builders.

We need functionaries everywhere--the state department, law firms, brokerage houses, the Vatican, and at media properties and ad agencies. Can their lives compare to the brave few who help make the desert bloom or pass through the eye of the needle in Silicon Valley and get funding and change our world? I suppose not but, in my life, I have been touched by and learned from any number of functionaries who were kind, helpful and did a good job. They were not “needed” but they were and are important.

If you would like to contact Don Cole directly, you may reach him at doncolemedia@gmail.com

The Four Headwinds

A long time ago I was at a client meeting in Florida. One fellow at the sessions was a fellow New Englander who had rarely ventured in to the South or Southwest in his life. At dinner, he mentioned how stunned he was at the amount of construction going on and asked how did Atlanta, Miami, Tampa, Houston, Dallas and Phoenix grew so fast. My clients gave answers such as no state income taxes in Florida or Texas, less regulation, and fewer union issues. My new New England friend asked me directly and I said, “Air conditioning.” The clients were not amused and let me know it after they dropped off the questioner. I stuck to my guns and do so now. In the last two weeks, I have read a book twice over that brought that moment back to me.

The book in question is THE RISE AND FALL OF AMERICAN GROWTH (Princeton University Press, 2016). Its author is Robert J. Gordon, a deeply experienced and prolific writer who is an economics professor at Northwestern University. Gordon’s book is a real tour de force. He essentially covers U.S. economic history from the end of the Civil War (1865) to 1970. It illustrates how the growth occurred and gives great credit to electricity which reduced the drudgery of many household and industrial tasks and was a great catalyst for growth.

Gordon is not an anti-tech luddite. He simply states that for us to have the dynamic growth experienced from 1870-1970 is going to be a steep challenge going forward due to four headwinds:

1) Inequality
2) Education
3) Demography
4) Repaying Debt


One by one, we find, in brief:

1) Inequality--the bottom 80% of the population has suffered wealth stagnation in the span measured from 1983-2013. The top 20% has experienced a doubling of wealth with the infamous top 1% going up several times. Interestingly, he cited studies that showed that the bottom 90% tend to have the world’s worst market timing. Those in stocks in 2008-2009 “bailed out” while the top 10% increased their holdings in 2009-2010 and saw their net worth multiply several fold in many cases. So what, you may say? Well, Gordon illustrates the growing difference between average income and median income (50th percentile). If current projections hold, every 1.0% gain in average income would only translate to 0.6% median growth. The 80-90% at the bottom will get more and more distant from the top 10%. This will effect overall buying power.

2) Education--from 1870-1970 there was a huge surge in people obtaining high school diplomas. Many high school graduates or less earned excellent money with great fringe benefits and were often union members. Today, a high school dropout will likely never earn more than minimum wage over his or her lifetime. And, college degrees are no longer a path to the upper middle class. Many recent graduates are doing work that does not require a college degree. Adding to this problem, is soaring college debt over $1.2 trillion. If a student takes on $100,000 in college debt they may be better off than a high school only graduate by age 34 IF they earn the same amount as the average college graduate. In some fields, that can be very difficult.

3) Demography--my old favorite comes to center court once more. As American baby boomers age (born 1946-1964), they are retiring at a rate over 6,500 per day. Fewer workers put a strain on funding the entitlements net (see post on “The Graying of the West” from 7/21/17).

4) Repaying debt--we have reported debt in the U.S. of over $20 trillion. Some analysts say that is absurdly low as our Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid liabilities push it up to $100-200 trillion. Right now, we have historically and, in my opinion, unnaturally low interest rates. The ratio of federal debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) may stabilize for a few years but has to soar if interest rates have a return to normalcy and/or if the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates are too optimistic as Gordon projects.

Professor Gordon is not a “gloom and doomer.” He strikes me as a hard headed realist who sees real problems on the horizon. Electricity and the internal combustion engine changed the lives of most of the world and made the 20th century, The American Century. The four headwinds will get in the way of even the exciting technological changes to come.

The book is amazing. I have read it twice in the last two weeks and it is over 750 pages long. Admittedly, it does not read like a sexy novel but it is not the Statistical Abstract either. I am clearly an economic history and demographic wonk but I found it very absorbing reading.

Too much for you? Okay. Go to You Tube. Professor Gordon has a 12 minute version on a TED talk that sums up his opinions. It is well worth 12 minutes. Not enough? You Tube also boasts a 90 minute presentation that the good doctor gave at the London School of Economics. Finally, You Tube has a few videos of academics trying to refute Professor Gordon’s forecasts.

If you would to contact Don Cole directly, you may reach him at doncolemedia@gmail.com

The Graying of the West

This is a topic that I have touched on in posts a few years ago. It needs a revisit as the demographic urgency has increased yet virtually no country affected by it has taken any meaningful steps to reverse the situation.

Aging has been increasingly evident in many Western nations for some time. Also, it is a long standing even drastic situation in Japan, and a big problem in Russia and China as well. It all starts with ZPG.

ZPG stands for Zero Population Growth. You need fertility rates of approximately 2.1 children per woman to replace each existing generation. As a young person, I never was much concerned with it but now, incredibly, some 60% of the world’s population lives in nations with fertility rates below ZPG.

So what, you may exclaim. This is good. Fewer mouths to feed and fewer people to pollute Mother Earth. One cannot argue with that although it shows a lack of faith in technological advancement. The problem is that since World War II ended in 1945 virtually all Western nations have created some form of social safety net. In the U.S. we have Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. In Europe, it is often referred to as retirement schemes and universal health care. All good in many people’s eyes but can the West continue to pay for it?

The European Commission published a paper a few years ago, that made even an experienced demographer such as I reel. By 2060, the German population will drop by a fifth and people of working age will plummet from approximately 52 million now to 36 million! Some dismiss problems with a smaller workforce saying that increased productivity will bail us all out. It will certainly help but caring for the massive increase in the elderly will put tremendous new pressure on the finances of even the most solvent governments (yes, there are a few left)!

To be blunt, what is going is a generational Ponzi Scheme of epic proportions. It is not brain surgery--it is simply demographics and plain arithmetic. As life expectancy increases and fertility declines, those younger people who are still working will have to pay a great deal more to take of the elderly in many, many nations.  Many will have to depend on immigrants to assist the elderly. Looking ahead a decade or two, these entitlements for the elderly will likely suffocate even the most robust economies.

Keep an eye on Spain and Italy. Both countries have had economic challenges for some time but as the societies continue to get older, the strain on their “provider state” will get intense. In the US, we have SOME breathing room. Social Security will stay solvent until 2034. Medicare/Medicaid is anyone’s guess as both Republicans and Democrats argue over health care. What both sides fail to address is the rising cost of healthcare. How will an aging population pay for it?

China is really facing a ticking bomb. Candid Chinese analysts refer to their “4:2:1” problem. Mao’s limit of one child per family in many provinces decades ago has created a situation where an adult child is asked to care for both parents and sometimes four grandparents. The World Health Organization projects that China will likely have more patients suffering from some form of dementia than the rest of the world combined by the year 2040. Think about it. It is frightening.

The nations of the world need to shift gears. Here at home we need to means test Social Security and raise the age for distributions or the system could collapse. Also, some health care proposal has to be crafted that whittles down the Medicaid burden and does not try to place it on the backs of the poor who simply cannot pay for it. Will we react in time?

Separately, a few words about senior marketing. Looking around the world, many countries seem to be doing a better job hitting the 60+ demographic than we do. In Canada, I have seen commercials aimed at the mature touting private label goods in supermarkets. Seniors are often financially challenged and are more careful shoppers, than younger adults. Also, they have more time. In Singapore, a flagship company, Singapore Telecom, known as Singtel, ran a highly imaginative campaign called Project Silverline a few years ago. The telecom behemoth asked for contributions of old iPhones and then retrofitted them by adding apps designed with senior users in mind. Very attractive plans were set up for seniors who might be on a tight budget. I would be interested in a similar plan at some point and will likely love a phone with larger keys as I get increasingly far sighted with each passing year.

In the U.S, many products aimed at seniors are almost comical. A few years ago, I was looking for CNBC and hit the wrong digits on my remote. Up popped The Andy Griffith Show. I watched for a few moments and realized it was my favorite episode ever, “Barney runs for sheriff.” For 20 minutes I was back to 55 years ago and laughed heartily at Don Knotts and Griffith. The commercial breaks were another story. Clearly, the DRTV advertisers realized that the viewership was old. A two minute spot appeared for the questionable reverse mortgages with a spokesperson actor whom I had not seen in years. Hemorrhoid remedies and denture adhesives followed finished by a spot for an alert bracelet for the elderly living alone. So, we seem to have a need for more nuanced marketing to the growing legions of the elderly in America. Some upscale players for financial institutions and luxury vacations do a nice job but few others are adequate.

So, the West has some challenges ahead and, while few will dispute the facts that I have laid out, even fewer feel moved to do something about it. Someone told me not to concern myself with it as “you will be dead before this really kicks in and, meanwhile, you get all the benefits.” Maybe so, but what kind of answer is that? If you have children or grandchildren, you have to care about the demographic cliff.

If you would like to contact Don Cole directly, you may reach him at doncolemedia@gmail.com

The Stealth Disruption

A few months ago a young adult approached me who said that he was working on a research paper for a graduate course. He asked what my opinion was on the most disruptive forces affecting businesses around the world. I assumed, and I was right, that he expected me to talk about advances in technology in the years to come. Instead, I threw him a curve ball that, as an American, he did not expect.

The big disruption that I mentioned to him was the shifting center of economic growth. The significant changes are going to be in emerging markets and, more subtly, to new cities within those countries with likely explosive growth.

Where did this concept come to me? Over 15 years ago, I woke up ready to go to work. A snowstorm was in progress. Not severe as the ones that plagued my native New England but one which paralyzed the southern city that I was working in at that time. So, I poured another cup of coffee and decided to wait a couple of hours before trying to  head to the office. As I relaxed, I picked up a neglected copy of FORTUNE magazine that had hanging around for several months. It was their annual issue highlighting the Fortune Global 500 and, with time on my hands, I studied the membership roster carefully. The list showed that well over 90% of the world’s largest companies were domiciled in developed countries dominated by the U.S., Japan, and Western Europe. Since then, I have tracked the list each year with a bit more caution. Dozens of newcomers have joined the international 500 as is typical of the creative destruction present in our 21st century world. Last year, I read a report from the McKinsey Global Institute that projected by 2025 China will have more billion dollar revenue companies that either the United States or Europe and that more than half of the 2025 large players will call an emerging market home. So, economic power is going to shift and perhaps faster than we can imagine to selected countries in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

There is a real sleeper in all of this and I tried very hard to articulate to the earnest young graduate student. It is not just that countries are seeing explosive growth relative to the developed nations of the West. A key issue is that entire new cities are emerging in these fast growing markets. On 5/22/12 I put up an MR post entitled URBANIZATION, GLOBALIZATION, AND MEDIA. A key take away from that post was that, amazingly, EVERY DAY, some 180,000 PEOPLE around the world moved from a rural area to a city. McKinsey has estimated that some 65 million people get urbanized annually. To put it in to perspective for American marketers, that is the equivalent of seven new Chicago DMA’s being formed annually. Marketers and reasonably informed citizens have all heard of Hong Kong, Shanghai, Dubai and probably Mumbai. Yet, the real dynamic growth will come from cities that most of us have never heard of ever. Again, quoting McKinsey, they are forecasting that 46 of the top 200 cities in the world will be in China by 2024. Can you name 46 Chinese cities? How about 10? I know that I could not prior to attacking this issue.  Soon Tianjin, Shenyang, Harbin, Chengdu, Taiyuan and a host of others will hit the radar screens of astute marketers.

Think of the possibilities of this growth. The UN has projected that between 1990 and 2025, some three billion people have or will become members of what has been dubbed “the consuming class,” meaning that they will have $10 of disposable income per day. A large proportion of these new consumers will be living in the cities of emerging economies. By 2030, they will account for half of the world’s spending!

All this will impact media as well. How will you reach all these new consumers? Within large countries, everyone will not be speaking the same language. An acquaintance told me to forget about it--advertise on You Tube and other global properties as everyone speaks English. He is clearly not a seasoned traveler as people everywhere, especially this new breed of consumers who are newly arrived urbanites, likely speak only their native tongue. Mobile advertising has to be a huge beneficiary of this rapidly growing trend.

So, quietly and steadily, these new cities will emerge and join the million population club. Perhaps, more importantly, they will have many newly minted members of the consumer class.

If you would like to contact Don Cole directly, you may reach him at doncolemedia@gmail.com